


If You Get Married in America, You Get Married in Real Life

by azurish



Category: Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alcohol, Crack, F/F, Las Vegas, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurish/pseuds/azurish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night out on the town after a victory over the University of Nevada - Las Vegas women's football team produces some unexpected results, and that's not even counting the marriage they're going to need to get annulled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Get Married in America, You Get Married in Real Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Addison R (beyond_belief)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/gifts).



            “So, how’re you liking America now?” Shelley shouts.  Or at least, Jules thinks that’s what her teammate just shouted.  It’s hard to tell, between the music and all the screaming and the fact that Jules is maybe a little too drunk to be totally with the program, right now.  Maybe.

            “This is fucking _great_!” she yells back, but Shelley’s already faded back into the seething mass of dancing people all around them and Jules doesn’t even care.

            It really is fucking great, though, so she turns to the guy dancing next to hear and shouts, “America is fucking great!” right into his face.  He doesn’t blink; she reckons this is probably normal behavior for Vegas on a Friday night.  Either that or he’s as blitzed as she is.

            There probably isn’t a single person in the club who’s sober right now, she thinks.  She’d already been four shots in when they arrived, because the Santa Clara women’s football team always celebrated in style and today’s victory over the University of Nevada – Las Vegas team had been no different, and then no one had been carding at the bar and, well, things had gotten a little bit away from her.  The floor beneath her feet is tacky with spilled drinks and the loudspeakers are set so high that the floor vibrates with the bass and there are two guys dressed like Stormtroopers leaning against the wall across from her, and she’s having a blast.

            Las Vegas is just so much bigger and louder and _more_ than she’d ever expected.  When the team had made its way to the club, the strip had been choked with throngs of tourists and ridiculously tall hotels and hundreds of neon lights and the dry desert heart, and it had almost been too overwhelming to take in properly.  It’s sort of what she’d thought America was going to be like – like the Disneyland version of the States – before she’d arrived in California.  Once she thinks of that, she wants to let someone else know this insight immediately, because it’s too perfect an assessment not to share.

            And once she realizes _that_ , she knows whom she needs to find, because really, there’s only one person who’d spent her first few weeks in America giggling with her over everything from the weird bacon to the electric sockets that looked kind of like faces.

            “Hey, hey, Jess!” she shouts, and her voice is immediately lost in the cacophony of noises in the club.  “Jess!”  She swings around, craning her neck to try to find her friend in the crowd, and knocks into the college kid who’s been hovering behind her for the past ten minutes.  For a moment, he looks pretty excited that she’s noticed him, before he realizes she’s looking past him.  “Hey, sorry about that!” she yells, and then pushes her way off into the crowd, using her elbows to clear the way.  Her flats stick to the floor when she moves.

            It takes her a minute or two of pushing her way through the crowd, but she finds Jess at last.  The other girl is dancing by herself right under one of the speakers, her body one graceful, sinuous curve as she sways to the beat.  “Jess!” she shouts, but her friend doesn’t hear her, so Jules pushes her way right to hear side, until she’s standing so close to her that their arms brush every time Jess moves.  Jess turns, sees her, and then smiles a brilliant smile that makes something shivery go down Jules’s spine.  She shouts something, but Jules has no idea what she’s saying over the crowd – it’s just too loud.  The DJ’s changed the music to something that sounds kind of like techno, and she can’t hear anything over the synthetic beats.

            So she cups a hand between her mouth and Jess’s ear, so that the other girl can just about hear her if she’s loud, and half-shouts, “Can you believe this place?”  She encompasses everything from the posters of David Bowie on the walls to the blacklights to the glitter that’s so omnipresent it made its way into both drinks she ordered tonight with one wide sweep of her arm.  “Is this ‘Vegas, _baby_ ’ or what?”  She drops down into her twangiest American accent for “Vegas, baby” and Jess giggles, then hiccups, then giggles again.  “I feel so _American_ right now, God.”

            “I know, I mean – I’ve never actually seen someone in an American flag speedo before,” Jess says.  She nods over towards the other side of the room, where there is, indeed, a man in a red, white, and blue speedo shaking his hips so hard that Jules is worried about the potential for a wardrobe malfunction.

            “Oh my God, I didn’t know Americans wore those for real!”

            “I know!” Jess shouts.  “If my parents could see me now …”

            “Hey, just imagine if my mom could see me now!” Jules says, and then both of them dissolve into a fit of drunken giggles.  “Don’t think she’d’ve let me come over here if she knew that this is the kind of thing that college kids in the States get up to.”

            “It’d put Joe in pershpec – perpecs – perspective, that’s for sure,” Jess says, and then she looks a little sad, so Jules tries to change the subject real fast.  Vegas, Vegas, what else is there to say about –

            And then, through the fog of six shots, she grasps the edge of what feels like a really good idea.  “You know what,” and she has to pause, because she’s not sure where she’s going with this, but then she remembers – “Hey, hey, you know what would be brilliant?  And really American?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Well, you know how they always – how they do in movies, in Las Vegas, right?  They always get married.”

            “Like with Katy Perry.”

            Jules rolls her eyes, because of course Jess listens to Katy Perry, but – “Yeah, like the song.”

            “It’s a good song!”

            “OK, it’s a rubbish song, but we should do that.  Get married.  Like Katy Perry.”

            Jess blinks at her, and for a moment, Jules thinks that maybe she is a little too drunk to make sense.  But no, this feels like a really good idea, she’s sure of it.  “We should what?”

            “No, come on, think about it, Jess: we’re in _America_.”

            Jess thinks about that for a moment.  “We’re in _Las Vegas_!”

            “And what do you do in Las Vegas?”

            Jess shouts something back that sounds like it might be one of the lines from the Katy Perry song, but Jules can’t really hear her.  She nods anyways.  “Yeah!  Can’t go to America and go to Las Vegas and not get married.  Be letting down everyone at home!”

            Jess nods, and Jules grins, because they are going to get _married_ in Las Vegas, and it’s going to be _hilarious_.  At this point, it becomes a matter of logistics.  Jess takes the lead now, tapping the UNLV player dancing next to her on the arm.  “How do people get married in Vegas?” Jess yells.

            She doesn’t know, but the two guys dancing next to her do.  Apparently they’ll just need to get to a Marriage License Bureau – whatever that is – with their passports, which they’ve brought with them as ID for the tournament anyways, and “maybe sixty dollars” and it should be pretty easy.  So they turn and push their way through the hot, sweaty crowd to the door.  Jules reaches back to grab Jess’s arm so that she doesn’t lose her and ends up accidentally grabbing her hand, and their fingers twine together without either of them really intending it.

            “Hey, we’re going to get married!” Jules shouts to the bouncer on their way out.

            He squints at them, then leers.  “Guess that’s legal now,” he says.

            Jess frowns as they walk out the door, the hot wind off the Strip blasting them right in the face as they exit.  It’s quieter outside than it was in the club, but there’s still a noticeable hubbub from all the people cruising the long street at this time of night.  Las Vegas comes awake at night.  “You think he thinks we’re – you know –”

            “Lesbians?” Jules says.

            “Yeah.”

            Jules can’t really remember why it’s so urgent that Jess not mention her and the word “lesbian” in the same breath, but she knows there’s some reason it’s a bad idea to let Jess continue with that train of thought, so she says, quickly, “No, we’re just – we’re just getting Vegas-married.  ’s what you do.  In Vegas.”

            Jess nods, but she’s biting her lip, so Jules shakes her head and belts out a couple lines of that Katy Perry song, because Jess better not be getting cold feet now.  “Shut up and put your money where your mouth is!”

            “How do you even know –”

            “That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas!”

            Jess laughs so hard she almost doubles over, and then she joins in, and they’re walking down the Las Vegas strip at eleven o’clock at night, still hand-in-hand, a continent away from their homes and their families, caterwauling out a Katy Perry song.  Strolling down the boulevard like that while belting out “Don’t call your mother – ’cause now we’re partners in crime!” is the last thing Jules really remembers from that evening.

 

*

 

            She’s going to die.

            Actually, she’s pretty sure she’s already dead.

            Her stomach is trying to worm its way out of her body through her mouth and if her brain throbs any harder it’s going to leak out her ears and oh, God, she feels awful.  She’s never had a hangover this bad in her life, and that includes the first time she went out with her friends, that time in Germany, _and_ the celebration party the Santa Clara team threw after the first game this season.

            She moans, turns to bury her head in the pillow – and gets an unexpected faceful of hair.  “Mnnghh?” she mumbles, and she carefully opens her eyes.

            Jess is sleeping next to her.

            The other girl’s eyes are closed and her mouth is open, and there’s a small trail of drool trickling down towards the pillow, but Jules’s breath catches in her chest.  Her dark hair is spread out, wild, all over the pillow, and Jules thinks she looks gorgeous, and OK, this is a really inconvenient time for that crush she’s been nursing for months now to manifest itself.

            Because there are clearly some more important issues for her brain to focus on right now, like what the hell is she doing in bed with Jess, and where the hell even _are_ they?

            Carefully, she levers herself up until a sitting position – and then groans again as her head spins madly.  Maybe it’s the noise, or maybe it’s the sudden shift in weight, but once she moves, Jess’s eyes flicker open.

            Jess looks as perplexed as she is, and also just about as hungover.  The other girl’s eyes are bloodshot, and her eyeliner has gotten smeared, raccoon-like.  She just stares at Jules for a moment, and then slowly sits up herself, rubbing distractedly at her cheek, which the piece of cardstock paper that was apparently lying beneath her on the pillow must have been digging into.

            “Any idea where the hell we are?” Jules asks.

            Jess has picked up the piece of paper and is examining it instead of listening to her.  Slowly, her face turns ashy.  She looks up at Jules, down at the paper, and up at Jules again, and then she thrusts the paper towards Jules wordlessly, her eyes wide.

            Jules blinks, her eyes too bleary to focus properly.  It looks – it looks like some sort of legal thing?  There’s her signature, and there’s Jess’s, and here’s some stuff about – about – she looks up and makes stunned eye contact with Jess.

            “We got – we got _married_?” Jess says, and she stares at her.

            Jules blinks, and then – “Oh, _shite_.”

            “How do we get out of this?” Jess says, her voice climbing a full octave in the space of a sentence.  “Can we get a divorce?  Are you sure this is even legal?”  And then she moans quietly.  “Oh, hell, do you think our parents know?  Do they – do they, like, send an email or something?  To notify them?  Does the government know – do we have to register this with the government?”

            “Hang on, no, calm down, we’ll figure it out,” Jules says, but inside, she’s panicking just as hard as Jess seems to be.

            “What were we _thinking_?”

            Memories from last night – the team party, the moment the UNLV girls showed up and suggested they all go out to this club they knew, the club itself – flicker through her mind, too fast to register properly.  There had been a chapel, and some forms, and they’d been grinning and giggling and the guy in the priest outfit had mocked their accents, and then they’d fallen face first on the bed in the tiny chapel room and laughed themselves to sleep.  “I think – oh, God, I think we thought it would be funny?  And American?”  She frowns and adds, “There was something about Katy Perry, too.”

            “Hey, no, you’re not blaming this one on me,” Jess says.  “I’m pretty sure it was your idea.”  


            “I don’t think I realized if you got married in Vegas, you _got married_ ,” Jules says, and then she digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and tries to think because this is not happening.

            “We’re married,” Jess repeats.  “My parents are going to – I can’t believe we – and how am I going to explain this?  ‘Oh, well, I didn’t _mean_ to get gay married in America, I was just _drunk off my face_ and it seemed like a good idea.’  They’re going to make me come home!  I can’t believe this; it’s ridiculous.”

            Distracted by concerns like “what the hell is _my_ mom going to do when she finds out I’ve gotten gay married in Vegas?”, Jules tries to commiserate.  “This whole thing is just mad – and – and you know what’s really shite?  I don’t even remember getting to kiss you, let alone the ceremony.”

            Jess freezes.  “What?”

            “Well, we must’ve done, right?  If we got married, we had to kiss at some point.”

            “No, but, uh …” Jess trials off, and Jules realizes she’s blushing.  She replays the last few sentences she’s said in her head, and – _oh_.

            The silence in the tiny chapel bedroom is deafening.

            “I, uh,” Jules starts, and then she falls silent again, because suddenly things have gone from “bad, but pretty funny” to “horrifying.”  Her head throbs from the hangover, and her thoughts are too sluggish for her to think of an excuse.

            “You wish you remembered kissing me?” Jess says quietly.

            “Look, I – I mean – ” Jules tries, and then, with no further warning, Jess leans in and kisses her soundly.

            She tastes awful, like stale pizza and last night’s cheap liquor, and Jules doesn’t even care.  She’s still pretty off-balance, but OK, this is great, she’s totally good with this.  It’s been months since Jules realized she was in love with her best friend, her roommate, her teammate, and she never thought _this_ could happen, so rational explanations are kind of a secondary concern right now.  She twines her fingers through Jess’s hair and moans into her mouth.

            “How’s that for something to remember, then?” Jess says, when they break apart.  She tucks one loose stand of her hair behind her ear a little defiantly, and though she’s refusing to look away, she’s also definitely blushing.

            “That’s – that was great,” Jules says.  Her voice is a little hoarse.  “That was really great.”  She pauses, then throws caution to the winds and says, “Could we – again –?”

             For a moment, she thinks she’s been too reckless and Jess is going to say it was a pity thing, or an experiment, or a joke.  But she’s sure Jess couldn’t have missed the electric whatever-it-was that passed between them when they kissed, certain Jess must feel it, too, and –

            Jess nods, and she leans forward and kisses her again.  And then they’re making out on the bed in the backroom of a chapel in Vegas, and apparently they’ve gotten married, but they can deal with that problem later because this – _this_ – is a revelation.  Jess runs a hand down her side, fingers touching bare skin where her shirt’s rucked up, and Jules shudders at the feel of it, traps Jess’s fingers there with her own.  The other girl smiles into the kiss and Jules isn’t exactly sure where they’re going with this, but she’s certain she’s going to be OK with whatever it is, and also pretty sure she’s been concealing her affections for the last few months for nothing.  Well, if it took getting drunk-married in Vegas for them to realize this, she’s pretty sure it’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make.

            America, Jules thinks, in one of her last coherent thoughts for a while, is _definitely_ really fucking great.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [this xkcd comic](http://xkcd.com/180/).  
> This is the crackier of the two fics I wrote you - wasn't sure whether you'd enjoy it, but between [this article](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/09/gay-marriages-begin-in-las-vegas_n_5962570.html) and the fact that you mentioned you liked accidental marriages and silly tropes, I figured I'd just go for it! Hope you enjoyed. =)


End file.
